Forumblog.org - The World Economic Forum Blog: United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15)

24 hours to go. With (technically) just one day left, here’s the read-out of what happened today, Thursday 17th.

For today I am relying on a good friend of the World Economic Forum’s Low Carbon Prosperity Task Force and a source close to the action within the Bella Centre, Jules Kortenhorst, who is the CEO of the European Climate Foundation. Jules is also a leading figure in Project Catalyst, which has done a vast amount of superb analytical work over the last two years to help give consistent information on climate change issues to policy makers. Thanks Jules for your thoughts today from inside the hall, reflected here.

So, it has been an interesting day. Head of State have started to make their mark.

The mood was gloomy early this morning. “Denmark Gives Up” was the headline of the Danish newspaper Berlingske. 9.30am saw a group of activists stage a sit-in inside the Bella Centre, protesting at the lack of progress.

Recall the main blockages at the start of the day.

Targets: Developing country emission reduction pledges were not seen to be enough by developing countries. There has been no change from my first blog from Copenhagen, which suggested current commitments from developed countries provided about two thirds of what is needed for a 25% reduction by 2020 against 1990 levels. With a day to go, there are still lots of brackets in the text on targets. Interestingly, a UN Report, dated 11pm Tuesday evening, was leaked today and it corroborates this situation. It says that “unless the remaining gap of around 1.9-4.2Gt is closed (ie, the last third – my insert) and Annex 1 parties commit themselves to strong action before and after 2020, global emissions will remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 parts per million, with the related temperature rise around 3C." That's quite unequivocal, to coin a phrase.

Recall that the target was for 450 ppm CO2e / 2 degrees celciuis. Recall also that during the week 102 poorer countries (out of the 193 represented at the talks) have come together to call for a 1.5 degree celcius limit to temperature rise. On this point, Jules makes an interesting comment, predicting the likely insertion of a clause that allows for a ratcheting up of targets in 5 years time: “Most parties acknowledge that the agreement, even at the highest end of proposals, are likely to fall short of a 450 ppm pathway. Therefore it is likely that a final agreement will include provisions for a process of review and strengthening of commitments in 2015” he told me this afternoon.

Finance: "$10 billion is enough to pay for the coffins of climate victims in Africa”. Richard Black of the BBC attributes this sombre quote to Sudan's Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, who was commenting on the quick start fund of $10 billion for 2010-2012, which has been offered by some developed countries. The longer term funds of 100 billion per year by 2020 (euros or dollars are interchanged here), are shy of what some estimates say is needed and shy of an earlier African demand for $400 billion a year by 2020. As well as the size, it is the governance of these funds (how are they generated, who organises them and how are they spent) which is also creating disagreements between developed and developing countries and resulting in brackets in the text

Transparency in monitoring. This is a key problem area. It seems the US won't accept its reduction pledges should be legally binding and inspectable by others unless China does likewise. "Not providing transparency is a deal-breaker for us," Hillary Clinton said at a news conference yesterday. But China doesn’t want legally binding reductions and doesn’t want international verification. This keeps China in line with the rest of the G77.

So this is why today started in a gloomy mood.

Early on, Chancellor Merkel told Reuters “I must say very honestly, that the United States offer to cut (C02 emissions) by 4% compared to 1990 levels is not ambitious”. Australian Prime Minister Rudd noted 102 square bracketed disagreements between delegates in the current draft. "I fear a triumph of inaction over action," he said. UK Prime Minister Brown was up next. He gave a Churchillian style statement to the plenary hall. “There is no insuperable barrier of finance, no inevitable deficit of political will, no unsurmountable wall of division that need prevent us from rising to the much needed common purpose” he said.

Then at 10.30 came a specific development. Hillary Clinton took to the podium. She announced that in the context of a "strong operational accord", the US would agree to support a $100billion fund by 2020. It was the highlight of the day. America moves, possibly. See her make this speech here.

Jules comments that inside the centre this created an uplift. “Big progress was made when Hillary Clinton announced that the US recognizes the need for $100 billion in financing for mitigation and adaptation for the developing countries by 2020. This is the signal from the US that many negotiators had been waiting for. Combined with the cash on the table for fast start funding between 2010 and 2013, it increasingly appears that the developed world will in due course put their money where their mouth is.”

Lunchtime saw Yvo de Boer hold a press conference. Working groups would try to polish up the two papers (the Kyoto extension paper and the new agreement paper – recall why we are in this two paper space, look to my first blog and subsequent comments). Right at the end, he also gave a nice hint I thought to the US to be a little more specific as to what they would actually chip into the US$100 billion pot.

To see Yvo’s press conference go to http://unfccc.int/2860.php

(Recall also Yvo is an active member of the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. Two weeks before the Copenhagen talks began, he advised the other Council members in one of the Forum’s WELCOM calls about the real possibility of the split into two papers. We look forward to welcoming Yvo back to the Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters to give Davos participants his debrief).

Close to 3pm it was President Lula’s turn. He urged delegates to stick with the Kyoto Protocol. Shortly afterward Nicolas Sarkozy said “people want to keep Kyoto, okay, let's keep Kyoto. But let us agree on an overall political umbrella.” This is the key, and there are elements in the text on Long-Term Cooperative Action (the LCA) which seek to link the two together.

Then the next development. China softened its stance on monitoring. Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said China was ready to engage in "dialogue and co-operation that is not intrusive, that does not infringe on China's sovereignty." Earlier, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had called for "all of us, developed and developing countries, to be flexible" on verification. He also indicated the possibility of setting up an international mechanism for monitoring emission cuts.

Taken together, these are very interesting developments on the future design of monitoring systems. At the Forum’s November Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai, the Future of China Council actually made a key recommendation for the creation of an independent international institution to monitor and report on progress against national greenhouse gas reduction targets and low-carbon growth plans. This idea is being considered as one of the pieces of the Forum’s Global Redesign Initiative (Sustainability Pillar) for development during 2010. It is interesting to see how work under the Global Redesign Initiative and the Forum’s Climate Change Initiative can come alive to help build the climate architecture of tomorrow that today’s leaders in Copenhagen are calling for.

Jules also reminded me of the progress made on the avoided deforestation and land use change issue, so important for short term emissions reductions, but not captured within the Kyoto Protocol. “On REDD (the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) the relatively small group of key nations most involved, have been progressing the negotiations and additional money has been pledged. An agreement on addressing deforestation is now in reach” he told me earlier.

This leaves us in an interesting space. The mood inside the Bella Centre may be slightly more positive than some of the press outside suggests it is, or wants it to be. “Copenhagen collapses” is, after all, a much better story than “Copenhagen could be slowly getting somewhere, maybe.”

Jules concludes “we have seen a significant change in the momentum of the negotiations and there is a chance that we will see a binding agreement coming out of Copenhagen over the next 24-48 hours. But there is an enormous amount of work still to be done. Negotiating texts are full of square brackets and placeholders are still disjointed and probably still too long. The clock is ticking. There are still precious hours to bring this deal together. There is all to play for.”

So the day ends slightly more upbeat than it began. There may be enough here to make a deal. It will be a hard push tomorrow. But will it be enough to hold the 2 degree Celsius line?

Tomorrow is deadline day. We wouldn’t expect a text until the early hours of Saturday, but I will report on where we seem to be at in the early evening. Later on Saturday afternoon, I will post the final COP blog, to provide comment on the agreed text.